The tired woman greeted Miss Dimple cordially. She was not only willing, but very well pleased to have the uneasy baby taken out of her arms. Dotty drew off her gloves, and laid the little one's head tenderly against her cheek. Baby looked wonderingly into the bright eyes bending above him, reached up a chubby hand, caught Dotty's hat, and twitched it towards the left ear.
"Sweetest cherub!" said the fond mother, as if the child had done a good deed, "Take off your hat, little girl. I'll hang it in the rack."
Dotty was glad to obey. But baby was just as well satisfied with his new friend's hair as he had been with the hat. It was capable of being pulled; and that is a quality which delights the heart of infancy. Dotty bore the pain heroically, till she bethought herself of appearances; for, being among so many people, she did not wish to look like a gypsy. She smoothed back her tangled locks as well as she could, and tried every art of fascination to attract the baby's attention to something else.
"You are a pretty little girl, and a nice little girl," said the gratified mother. "You have a wonderful faculty for 'tending babies. Now, do you think, darling, you could take care of him a few minutes alone, and let me try to get a nap? I am very tired, for I got up this morning before sunrise, and had baking to do."
"O, yes'm," replied Dotty, overflowing with good nature; "you can go to sleep just as well as not. Baby likes me—don't you, baby? And we'll play pat-a-cake all so nice!"
"It isn't every day I see such a handsome, obliging little dear," remarked the oily-tongued woman, as she folded up a green and yellow plaid shawl, and put it on the arm of the seat for a pillow. "I should like to know what your name is; and some time, perhaps, I can tell your mother how kind you were to my baby."
"My name is Alice Parlin," replied our enraptured heroine, "and I live in Portland. I'm going out West, where the Hoojers live. I—"
Dotty stopped herself just in time to avoid "putting on airs."
"H—m! I thought I had seen you before. Well, your mother is proud of you; I know she is," remarked the new acquaintance, settling herself for a nap.
Dotty looked at her as she lay curled in an ungraceful heap, with her eyes closed. It was a hard, disagreeable face. Dotty did not know why it was unpleasing. She only compared it with the child's usual standard, and thought, "She is not so handsome as my mamma," and went on making great eyes at the baby.